The Grottoes

The Grottoes of Castellana open in south-eastern Murge, a limestone plateau formes in the upper Cretaceous (ninety-one hundred million years ago) for the slow build up, at the bottom of marine basins, of small colonies of organism.

For millions of years generations and generations of these life forms – plants and marine mollusks – succeeded to each other and dying, their empty shells, and their carcasses were piling up on the seabed, forming a giant deposit of mud and of sand, that with a continuous growth is compressed, to form limestone layers for a total thinckness of several kilometers.

Starting sixty-five millions of years ago, the gradual raising of the land brought the region to its current aspect and the karstic constitution of Apulia is manifest also in the presence of  asurface layer of cavities throught which the water  passes during its descent. The physical and chemical effects of water running underground create galleries, grottoes and caverns which intersect in a thousand ways. When the water ceases to flow, or changes its course, these caves remain, made still more beautiful by the accumulation of stalagmites and stalactites.

The caves started to dress in concretions of calcite. The formation of concretions is long and delicate, The increase varies form tenths of a millimeter to a couple of centimeters per year, depending on the physical environment

Useful information

The visit of the Grottoes of Castellana – open all year – is done with the help of the tour guided.

The tour develops an average depth of 70 meters along two routes: the first of 1 km long lasts 50 minutes, the second of 3 kilometers long lasts almost 2 hours.

The temperature of the underground, constant throughout the year is about 18°C, while the humidity is above 90%.

The Grave, the first and most extensive cave of the underground system, is the only environment naturally connected with the outside world: 100 meters long, 50 wide, 60 deep. From the skylight you see a scrap of blue surrounded by a circle of Holm oaks typical of the clear sky of Puglia.

The stretch of caves open to the public is made up of very different environment in shape and size. Stalactites, stalagmites, curtains, column, precious crystals appear everywhere.

The names of the environments are the result through the imagination of the early explorers: the she-wolf, the Monuments, the Owl, the Madonnina, the Altar, the Precipices, the Corridor of the desert, the upside down Column, the Red Corridor, and the Dome.

Finally, there is the last and most beautiful underground cave system, the White Grotto, as defined for the wealth and whiteness of its alabaster, the most brilliant of the world. But, in addition to the tourist route, there are interesting side ramifications – the north-western branch, the enchanted angle, the Little Paradiese and the internal Precipices interestig for exploration and research of speleologists.

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